Becoming a Best Ball Bro: Do We Have It All Wrong?

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Whether you're new to football, a fantasy football fan act or a die hard man, NFL pro will help you analyze the game like a pro. Listen to NFL pro on the I Heart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey JJ, my wife and I have been training for a half marathon on Saturday. We peaked at eight miles. We're almost there at that full 13 and change. Everything heard after. When's the last time you did something stressful? That would be on Sunday when I didn't know if Ash and Gentee was alive or not. I'm JJ and over the last couple of years, I've been doing everything I can to be a best ball, bro. And last season, things finally fell into place. I got 40th in the draft King's Millie contest taking home $20,000. Maybe I became a best ball, but I'm still looking to learn more about this game and I still want others to come on this ride with me. So even if you consider me a best ball, bro, this could be your year. This could be the year that you officially become a best ball, bro. This episode is sponsored by draft Kings. We've partnered up with draft Kings again this year for best ball and we've got a can't miss offer on their biggest best ball contest ever. $20 million in total prizes. It's draft one, get one draft your team wants no weekly line of management and your top scorers start automatically each week all season long. Download the draft Kings daily fantasy app and sign up with promo code late round. Enter a lineup of the $20 million best ball contest for $25 and get a bonus ticket for a second entry. Two shots at the title draft one, get one only on draft Kings. The crown is yours. Welcome into another episode of becoming a best ball, bro. I'm JJ Zacharyson joined as always by Rich Ryan Rich. We're both wearing blue today. How you doing? That's right. The blue boys, I almost made it. I almost made it. I almost made another blue be a liturative joke. But this is a family show. Yes, painful speaking of painful yesterday. Those, those couple of hours waiting to see whether or not Ash and Gentie had a fantasy football pulse. Of course he was blood was loving to his fans. But for our selfish purposes, our selfish purposes, we need him to rise up like the undertaker. And it sounds like he has. Yeah. I mean, to a degree seems like, you know, it was probably the best case scenario in those moments. I mean, I'm a little bit overweight on gentie and I was drafting. I'm a lot more in like July for some. I went, I go through these like spurts of like drafting players a whole lot. And so I haven't drafted them a lot recently, but I am overweight. So I was sitting there being like, please, and I'm underway on my Washington. I'm like, please, Ash and be okay. I need you this year. I need you. But we are, I break that down with our guests today in pretty good detail. A lot of game theory discussion, probably the most game theory oriented guest that we've had on the show. We had him on, I think last year, but we'll get to that in just a second. First, let's talk about some risers and followers in ADP, Rich, because we're in this, this season. Now, I'm sure there's going to be one because we just got word that Kashambudi was traded to the Texans. We are recording this. We usually record this part on Tuesday, but we're recording it on Monday this week. But Kashambudi did get traded to Texans. So I'm sure he's going to be a riser here, you know, soon. But let's go over some risers and followers because there's been a lot of movement in the ADP streets recently. Yeah, let's start with Keenan Allen, somebody you were drafting when he was a free agent now on the Indianapolis Colts. And as of last week, he was starting to go in round 14. Are you still drafting Keenan? Are you just happy with your position or are you out with Mr. Allen? Yeah, I mean, like, I'm fine. If I am getting a stack and he's there and there's, you know, like that range doesn't have a ton of like locked in great wide receivers. And, you know, do I think he's locked in and great? Maybe locked in, but not necessarily like amazing. I think that he certainly lost his tap. He's not that much of a down the field type player. But the one thing about Keenan Allen man is that the last two stops he has been used quite a bit in his offenses. Last year, he had the highest target share among all chargers, wide receivers. By a pretty decent margin when you look at it on a per-row run basis, and then you look at the bears a couple of years ago. He had a better target share than DJ Moore. And that was Roma Dune Zay's rookie season. And he had a better target share by a healthy margin over Roma Dune Zay. So I look at Keenan Allen as someone who's going to get you something. I actually had a good discussion about this with a guest as well today, which I'll just say it's Mark Garcia. But, you know, I had a great discussion with Mark about sort of like the idea of taking zeros and not taking zeros, because I think a lot of guests have sort of gone with the idea that we shouldn't be taking zeros and that we should look for just as much floor as ceiling with some of the later round picks. But Mark kind of disagrees with that. So that's a little teaser for our conversation. It's a really good conversation. But with Keenan Allen, I think that he is a solid pick still in round 14. I would assume that he's going to go earlier in a lot of drafts. Obviously, this is ADP. So, you know, there's, and I've seen him go a lot earlier in drafts. But this is, you know, looking at where he was before, it's still kind of catching up a little bit. So yeah, I mean, if you're getting him round 14, I think round 13 is fine. It's an area of the draft where things just start to go kind of south at the wider sear position. All right. Let's stay out on the West Coast. Talk about a guy you just said you're a little underway on. And that's rookie running back, Mike Washington. There's a bit of noise, I think, in this week's data in terms of ADP, of course, because of yesterday's craziness. But a couple of weeks ago, he was settling in around 187. So, regardless of rise for Mike Washington, who's looked electric in preseason. So, why are you lower than the market, I guess, on Washington? I haven't drafted enough of him, for sure. Like, I'm under 8% Washington, and I have regrets, for sure, based on where we're at right now. I didn't think that he had a terrible profile by any means. He actually had a positive draft capital delta in the Zat model, which tells me that the model likes him a little bit more than where he was being drafted. It wasn't so big that it made him a low-risk player, but it was on the positive end. The thing with Washington's really weird is that the Zat model inputs do like him more than some of the advanced numbers do. So, I mean, some of the numbers in the Zat model are advanced, but I mean some of the stuff that you see, like, avoided tackles per rush, et cetera. So, like, he had a 62nd percentile reception chair in his best season, a 65th percentile adjusted yards per team play, a 57th percentile adjusted receiving yards per team pass attempt. So, that builds you a picture of, like, oh, this is a pretty above average production profile overall. He was an older prospect, but even still, you know, that doesn't look bad, and then you add on the fact that he crushed a combine. He had the best, one of the best speed scores you're going to find in the Zat model. I think Keith Marshall was the only one who had a better speed score in the model. I just can't remember completely, but regardless, the advanced metrics are where things start to get a little bit ifier and scarier for him, where he had a 12th percentile avoided tackles per attempt, a 22nd percentile explosive run rate, which is crazy because of what he did do with the combine, 16th percentile yards out of contact per attempt. And he did split backfields throughout college. So, part of the reason why I didn't go after him heavily is because, you know, I just didn't think that necessarily if Ash and Jenty went down, that Washington would be the for sure guy in that backfield. And I think that we were kind of seeing them talk and speak to this when they would talk about him after these big gate preseason games where they would say that he was still working on some of the past catching stuff. They have Dylan Lauby in their backfield too, who is someone who had a really good receiving profile coming out. And that's kind of the role that he would hypothetically play. So when the news went down, I didn't really send a fire, a take out there because I was kind of waiting for stuff to kind of come out. I figured it would come out. I honestly thought it would be just a couple of hours, ended up being like six hours. But I was kind of shocked by the RB2 placement of Mike Washington because we know that this environment is not elite, right? I mean, I love the system and I love what it could be, but it's not an elite environment. The reason we're drafting Ash and Jenty is because he's going to get a ton of work on the ground, but he's going to get a ton of work through the air more than likely as well. That's the allora with Ash and Jenty. If that piece was gone for a player like Mike Washington to a, like, let's say, halved, right? Like if Mike Washington and a lead back role for the Raiders would be like a six to seven percent target share player and Jenty's double that, that's a huge difference. It's a huge Delta. And so I couldn't get behind Washington and like the top 30 issue of running backs, but I think you could start thinking about him right after that just because there's a pretty big drop after that. Like I would still be drafting again, this is not what came to fruition, but I would still be drafting like Ramondra Stevenson over Mike Washington, for instance, because I do think that their projection in general might be semi close of Gen T. We're out, but there's more contingent upside with Stevenson, if Trayvon and Trayvon Henderson's banged up right now too, but if Trayvon Henderson were to go down. So he's looked apart in the preseason, there's not that much predictive value there though. So I'm not going to overstate what that all means. And there's been enough coach speak sort of that says that he's still has some stuff to work on that I don't think that he would just become a full blown bell count that backfield. Regardless, I wish I was more in like the eight percent, nine percent, 10 percent range with Mike Washington as opposed to like the five percent that I'm at contingent upside and better offensive environment, of course, for Ramondra, right? We median outcomes, project New England to be much better at scoring points, then Las Vegas, which at the end of the day, scoring points is so important for their running back position. We'll stay with another rookie. This one, you're a little more bullish on, especially more than his fellow rookie teammate. Let's talk about Kevin Concepcion. Concepcion. Yeah. Casey. Casey, man, I just think he's really good and I've been drafting him. I think others should draft him. He's been rising. That's why he's part of this list right now, but I still think that he's at an okay price tag. I'm not really concerned about, I mean, I'm concerned about the quarterback play, but not specifically the fact they named a Sean Watson, a starter. I think that regardless of who's under center, it's not going to be great. But you could also argue that it's going to help some of the underneath stuff because I don't think Watson can really get the ball down the field very effectively at this point. So yeah, I mean, like I, this is just a reminder that that Casey, Concepcion, in my opinion, was a, I don't want to say far superior because that, that doesn't frame it properly. But he was definitely at least like a tear to above what Denzel Boston is, in my opinion. And Boston, I do have some fear to take a term from Matt Harman that there's a little sacrificial X to his profile this year. You know, I do think that there's some upside with Boston. He's in that kind of like Cortland Sutton archetype. You know, if you want to take that a step further, you get into like Tedero and McMillan, then into Drake London, right? And so like there's that kind of archetype going on with Boston, but I think Concepcion fits what we really would want from a player in this offense, which is getting looks all over the field. They're going to manufacture touches for him. And you know, if you want to make, and I made this comparison whenever the draft happened, but this could be Todd Monkins like Zay flowers in a way in this offense. So I'm, I'm pretty hype on, on Concepcion, I think is a good prospect. And I, I'm not, I'm concerned about the offense. But obviously if you were in a better offense, you'd be like a seventh round pick, not like a 11th round pick. It's just so hard to play X in this league and be efficient from a fantasy perspective. Yeah. Especially a bad offense. Yeah. You can't, not everyone's just Nico Collins, like go stand on the outside and dominate people. We want guys moving and getting spammed with easy targets. Another rookie. I'm curious to hear your take because the steam continues for the John Stribling who's up two more rounds since the last time we talked. Yeah. I mean, like I get it. I understand it. I think that there's a lot of reason to click his name still. You know, it's more so though, I'm going to probably be a little bit more inclined. You know, I'm trying to not let CLV get in the way too, too much. But I do want to, you know, with like a, a, a, a May to through August contest, like the Milley, you know, there's going to be a lot of teams that got Stribling in around 18, 19, 20 as opposed to round nine. And they're, you know, I have, I have another CLV conversation on with, with Mark. But I don't think it's the end of the world if you're drafting men around nine. But there's, they're, we're beginning to get into a place of like opportunity costs. Like I've definitely changed my tune on Stribling over the last month or two, just, just by doing a little bit more research and thinking about his positioning more on this team while also obviously, you know, reading into the hype and, and watching him, like he's got very strong hands and he's very physical. And those things a lot, and he can produce yak. And those things, you know, in a Kyle Shanahan offense can work that alone. The thing that I'm trying to be reasonable with is the fact that Mike Evans has been playing Christian McCaffer has been playing and George Kittle has been playing. And so obviously those three guys are going to be, you know, more focal points of the offense than what Stribling is going to be. So I'm not against drafting him where he's still going. If he starts to creep up into, and look, again, like once you get into like, like round six as early as round six, you start to get into very questionable wide receiver profiles in my opinion. I'm certainly not saying that like he has a horrible ADP, especially from like a wide receiver standpoint. But I do like some of the running backs and rounds, you know, eight to nine and some of the quarterbacks that go there, you can complete a lot of stacks, even the tight ends at times will fall and you'll get a discount with them. So I'm not going to push it that much further than this. But you know, if you're only doing 10 to 20 drafts or something and you don't have enough Stribbling or whatever the case may be, I think it's fine to draft him, you know, in this range because there's plenty of upside with his profile. He's still mega, mega, mega undervalued and season long leagues. Like it's pretty crazy how, how little love he's getting in those on, on major platforms. So if you want to get your exposure and you're playing season long in that way, I'd probably do that. But you can still do it in basketball too. We started the riser segment with a veteran free agent signing and like the Phoenix all ends with beginnings and we'll start and finish Najehara signs with the New York Giants and despite his fancy footwork in those videos online, he's only going in the 19th round. Yeah. I mean, there was a tweet and I can't remember who sent it. And so somebody can tag me and I'll retweet it and give them love because I'm not trying to plagiarize here. But someone made the point on Twitter where they said that Najehara's coming off into killies isn't a big deal for Najehara's because he didn't have any burst to begin with, right? Like, like he's the kind of player that this might not matter as much for because having that like quick speed and acceleration was never really part of his game, I'll be honest Rich. Like, I think Harris could have some role in this offense this year because he's a player that coaches seem to like. I mean, our sample size is obviously the Steelers with Mike Tomlin who loved him despite Jalen Warren being the better running back. And then like, I know there's a skill to be able to handle a big workload, but there probably should have been more of a split with with Jalen Warren throughout Najehara's time in Pittsburgh. And then he goes to LA last year. And I like Amarian Hampton as a prospect and I thought that he was, he actually wasn't as bad as some people think last year. But regardless of all that like Najehara's was in store to probably see a decent amount of work in that backfield before he got hurt. And so now you look at this coaching staff in particular with Harba and company and it's kind of a veteran staff and I'm not going to be surprised if Najehara's is just one player that they lean on and like more than what the fantasy masses want them to, you know, and the way that we feel about that. So I still think Cam Skatabo is fine. I've cooled off on him the last couple of months, but regardless, like like the last month or so, I think that we should bump him down a little bit from this and his ADP has fallen a little bit from this. But it's not going to surprise me if Harris has some role. I've actually drafted him a couple of like I haven't avoided drafting Najehara's in the 19th, 20th round because I wouldn't be surprised if he just ends up playing as there are be two this year. And I mean, their brothers, right? If John pick up the phone and ask Jim what he what it was like having him on the team in the running backs room as a player, if Jim didn't endorse it, John and the staff don't bring him into New York. So there's something here. Stockfollars and Kyle Menongai has this nagging injury, which seems like it is scaring a bunch of people off of drafting him. He's fallen a full round over the last week, but JJ, we know the money in best fall is later in the season. And perhaps a recovery might be in tune for Mr. Menongai. Yeah, man. This is what we were talking about last week. We're like, I'm trying to not like make too big of a deal out of the early season injuries. I do think that, you know, Deandre Swift, who got pushed up based on this news. He's like a mid-fourth round pick now. I like Swift. I think that Swift is a good pick, but I'm still drafting Menongai when he falls and sometimes he falls even further than like the round and ADP just because, you know, obviously some of this data needs a little time to like fully catch up. But to me, Menongai is still a decent click, decent enough click in a best ball environment. He's actually a better and best ball player in my opinion because I think there could be some unpredictability in your manage league, especially a shallower league for him because there's not going to be that much pass catching up side similar to how if you like a Chris Rodriguez or like a JK Dobbins or whomever, you know, they're better and best ball type players. But yeah, I'm trying to not this just goes back to what we talked last week. I'm trying to not overstate this early season stuff because we could be looking at this in week five. I mean, like, oh, yeah. I forgot he missed weeks one and two or whatever the case may be. He might not even miss any. Who knows? But I don't want to draft injured players. Don't get me wrong. I'm more okay with drafting injured players who have a timetable to return that is early in the season when there's no buy weeks. And we have players that can fill in for them in our in our best ball lineup. So I'm still drafting Menongai in my bear stacks. Yeah. I mean, that's where I'm at with him overall. Final guy, Rashad White. loves them some bill. Yeah. Nobody loves themselves some Rashad white. I'm still drafting both of them. I do think that bill has kind of like just based on reliable beats out of Washington. Sounds like that they're getting a more involved as a pass catcher, which is exactly what he needs. But look, in college, Bill's best season reception share, and he was an older prospect. In college, his best season reception share was 8%, which is really low. It's like a 20 second percentile number. And then last year he had a sub 30% route share. And Rashad white in a non full-time role last year was still in the top 20 in route share at running back. So like, I still think that they're going to have a split backfield. And that's enough for me, especially in a bestball environment to lean into the ambiguous backfield while also recognizing that these guys both might get and should get some usable weeks for this offense, you know, tonsil out regardless. You know, so I think that this is the right kind of ambiguous backfield to attack because there are outs for both of them. And I think both of them have a very real chance of giving you a number of usable weeks in a bestball environment. Yeah, totally agreed. In the rare times that I've gone zero-ish or waited a little bit on running back, I mean, in this PPR environment, someone like White is just such a nice click to be able to grab there in the early double digit rounds. For sure. For sure. All right, let's get to the guest. Mark Garcia, bestball analyst of one week's season. He does work for stat rankings as well. It was a great conversation. You guys will definitely learn something. There were times where I had to, like, really. I know that people say this all the time about the late-round podcasts where they're like, sometimes I got to, like, really focus on the things that you're saying because it's just boom, boom, boom, boom. And I felt that way with Mark sometimes, where I'm like, I got to make sure I'm, you know, hearing what he's saying here because he's going very deep into the game theory world. And that's what this conversation was about. We talked about Ash and Gentie. We talked about CLV. We had a very deep discussion about zero RB that was not surface level whatsoever. So hopefully you guys dig it. I really enjoyed talking to him. So without further ado, here is that interview with Mark Garcia. I'm Britt Coleman and I'm Trevor Sikima. If you ever watched a game and wondered what really made the difference beyond the final score, that's exactly why we created NFL Pro. Every week we use exclusive next-gen stats insights and NFL content to break down the biggest stories, matchups, and moments from around the league. We go beyond the box score to uncover the numbers, the tendencies, and details that help explain what actually happened on the field. Fires it out to flag the Barclays to beat one man, spins past another, leaps over a bird. And don't worry, this isn't just a show for stats experts. We use advanced analytics to help tell the story behind the game, turning the numbers into insights that every fan can understand and enjoy. So whether you're a casual fan learning more about football or a hardcore fan who can't get enough analysis, our goal is to help you see the game in a whole new way. If you've ever wanted to know why a playwork, how a matchup was won, or what most fans missed on Sunday, NFL Pro delivers insights you simply can't get anywhere else. Listen to NFL Pro on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. The new NFL season is here and you should be listening to NFL Daily as we march along to Super Bowl 61. Last year, we had Mike McDonald, Sam Darnal on the field after the game, but that was last year. If you're a football sicko like me, NFL Daily is your kind of show. It is in the name NFL Daily fresh content in your feed every day, all season long. Matthew Stafford coming off his MVPC on a dazzling darts from Matthew Stafford. Big time trades that shake up the NFL. And of course, those Seahawks trying to run it back and win another Lombardi trope. The Seahawks win Super Bowl 60. They are bringing Lombardi back to the Northwest. If it's happening on a football field, NFL Daily will cover it. Listen to NFL Daily on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. All right, Mark. So we had kind of this weird thing happen on Sunday where Ashen Gentie was thought to essentially have lost his season where he gets hurt. We didn't know if it was an ACL. We didn't know exactly how long he would be out for. Now we know that it was an ankle injury, but there was this six hour window where best ball drafts were going on and folks were drafting Gentie as late as the double digit rounds. Mike Washington was going as early as like round four, round five. My question to you is not necessarily specifically about the Gentie situation in the Raiders backfield. It's more when an injury like this occurs and there's this unknown window, this window of ambiguity, what is your game theory angle? And do you think that people are now today sort of making too big of a deal out of, oh, there are these milley rosters out there and lineups out there that have Ashen Gentie, round six. That just ruined the entire turn. Yeah, so two part answer, I guess, for a two part question, right? To answer the first part, it comes down to risk management. More broadly speaking, I think portfolio management. So like, if you're a player that you just started drafting, like put yourself in a situation where like you just started drafting on Sunday afternoon, and like you're going to use the last three weeks of this draft window to draft your entire portfolio, whether that's 20 drafts, 50 drafts, 100 drafts, however many you get in, but you didn't start until right now. So that's a different discussion than if you have been drafting since late May. And you've been, you've seen the ups and downs of the cycle of ADP. You've gone through all the motions there. You've seen kind of how things have shaken out and you can adjust and basically adjust your own portfolio versus what has already happened. So two different, very different situations that would also require very different answers. So you kind of have to look introspectively and say like, where do I fit in that spectrum? And those are probably the two extreme examples, right? Where do I fit in that spectrum? How should I optimally approach this situation? So the answer is probably, like it depends, which is like a everyone loves here in that answer, but it really does depend on your own portfolio. How many drafts you're putting in? Say for me personally, if I'm putting in 500, 750, a thousand drafts even, and I've been drafting since May, and I look at my Ashton Gentee exposure level and I'm at like six to eight percent, which I was. I was a little bit below below market. I would want exposure to later Ashton Gentee. Now how far that like, and there's so much variance and so much extra stuff that we can throw into that discussion, but that's really what it boils down to is like, where is your own risk management at for your own portfolio? Because it's not really a one size fits all answer. Like we could say, yeah, we want to get exposure to Gentee, but like if you just started drafting, you could say like, I see that I have zero Ashton Gentee. This is my first draft. Do I want to take on that additional risk of say taking an Ashton Gentee in like the sixth round where he was at the one to turn? It's again, it's over to your own like risk management. So it really comes down to each individual user. I'd say from a game theory backed perspective, we should want to lean into increased variance when the field is kind of shying away from that. We'll talk a little bit more about that too, because there's this whole discussion to be had about like what leads up to this discussion over the last four months. But that's kind of the short answer. Now I forget what the second part of the question. So I've been having so many discussions recently on the show about CLV. And you know, because I think on one hand, like of course we all understand like you want CLV. Of course you want positive and favorable CLV because that's going to help your portfolio. But then I see the reactions that I'm seeing on social media today where there are people basically saying like those teams are the ones to beat because they got Ashton Gentee in round six. And obviously he's banged up. But I want to hear your take on like why that response is probably just too extreme in general, you know, with the way that that things went down. There is so much variance and all come like a lot of what we're going to discuss comes back to this buzzword variance. There's so much variance in this contest that we're playing. You can't say with any shred of like certainty that that having Ashton Gentee in the sixth round is any more beneficial to having them in the at the one two term. We have no idea. And especially for playoff formats. So your draft Kings, your BBMs, it's a little bit of a more even more nuanced discussion for cumulative formats where obviously you draft a team and you're playing for most points between weeks one and 17. But for playoff style formats, we have to understand that we really only have one way of measuring like success in this contest because we have such a small sample size. And that's really expected value. value. And the thing with expected value is there's a couple of assumptions that not a lot of people understand when we're talking about expected value. One, it assumes an infinite sample size. We don't have that. So like, who's to say that our expected value will have like, even if we played this tour 100 years old, every single year, and all these contests remain the same throughout that time period. Like we still don't have a sample to say, I'm a good basketball player. I'm a bad basketball player. Like we just don't know. But the second thing that expected value assumes is that all other players have a similar starting point to us. And we're going to get like heavy in the game theory here. The assumption of like, and I'll liken it to poker in this, I hope this isn't too meandering of a discussion. There's a lot to like, no, I think that's important. Yeah. The thing that we can measure or being expected value, it assumes game theory optimal play. Now, with game theory optimal play, we'll liken it to poker, right? And that's my personal background in like the gambling sphere is like, I had my come up in poker started playing when I was 14 under my dad's name, when it was like, how I got my come up into this kind of sector of gambling. But in game theory optimal in poker, there are some assumptions, one being the infinite sample size, two being that everybody else that you're playing is also abiding by game theory optimal play. So then if everybody's on the same playing field, we can accurately analyze expected value and we can accurately analyze if these plays that we are making are profitable or not. So loop that back to best ball. If we know for certain, and we know this in poker too, like not everybody is playing game theory optimal poker. If we know now that not everybody is playing theoretically optimal best ball play, that calculation for expected value is even more muddied. So those are two things fighting against us here to say like, are we playing this game as optimally as we can? And now, our answer is like, I don't know. We don't have the sample. Variance is off the charts. So if we're talking about like a specific player or a specific situation as you cannot overcome that, like sixth round Ashton J&T, you can't say that. We have the idea. And then you talk about like playoff style format contest, the variance is amplified that much further. You know, like, is it one of 16 advancing from week 16 to week 17? Is it one of 12? Is it one of four? All these things go into this calculation of expected value. Now the one thing that we do know about expected value, and this is we're able to calculate this, is where does the expected value from these contests come from? If we add it all up, about 80% and again, this is going to change based on the format and how many people are advancing weeks 14, 15, 16, whatever the case may be, right? About 80% of our expected value in playoff formats comes from the combination of advancement rate and week 17. So if we know that those are the two most important things, we should theoretically speaking be focused on those two things the heaviest. Right. There's a lot of talk this year and last year about like week 17's all that matters or advancement rates all that matters. Like no, neither of those is correct, mathematically speaking, but those are the two things that we can kind of control the most when we're putting together these rosters. So like, do we care about week 15 correlation and week 16 correlation and game stacking? Like, we probably shouldn't, like the math says we shouldn't, like, that's how we get to week 17. Yeah. But the two things we should be focused on the most are advancement rate and then optimizing for week 17. So to say like sixth round Ashton, Jenty, when, you know, 75% of the field has one to turn Ashton, Jenty, like we just don't know, dude. Like, let's let the variance shake out. Let's play this game a little bit. Yeah. I think that that's especially the playoff stuff is so key. And this is where I've been having a lot of discussion with people, especially, you know, like Malibu neighbors is a great example of this because obviously folks were getting him at like late fourth for some of the summer into the fifth sometimes. And now he's not going there because we obviously know the end result. And like, I've dumped it down to essentially saying, look, if Malik neighbors has a great week 15 through 17 stretch and dominates there, you could take, you could argue you should take him 101, right? Like, like, you, like, you, there's, there's no telling that like he's a good or bad pick at that point. And there's also so many other variables in a, in a 20 team on DK lineup that can influence this that I do think that we get to a point of just like, dumbing down what best ball is when we say, oh, other teams have action, Gen T and round nine. Now, oh, I'm dead. I can't, I can't come back from that. But Gen T is very easily able to have a, a dud, you know, and it's similar to like even last year, I remember, you know, obviously running early, early around running back did, did great last year, generally speaking. But then you get into the playoffs or like, say one, remember, say, one's great year a couple of years ago. And then you get into the playoffs and like that, that first week of the playoffs, like he, he gave you a dud. And then all of a sudden a lot of those teams struggled because he was carrying those teams into advancing. And he was a big part of that. I shouldn't say he was just carrying, but he was a big part of it, obviously. And so, you know, it just goes into your point about variance and about the fact that like, there are so many inputs here that I don't want to overthink. And this is my, my general theme this year. And maybe this is like kind of like underthinking it. But like, I think CLV might be a little bit overrated from the standpoint of this, what variance is and what kind of CLV you're actually getting. Of course, we would rather be on the favorable side of CLV. Like, of course, and this is not like I, I joked earlier because I was a little bit underweight on like neighbors and I joked earlier. I was like, this is, I promise you, this is not cope for for the, you know, the, the slight underway with neighbors thinking that I could get neighbors cheaper as the, you know, as the summer went on. But to me, it's just like, like, I have a ton of stuff on digs, right? And I got digs at, and around 12, around 13. Yes, I'm at a slight advantage, probably, probably with that. But I don't think that we can definitively say one way or another that this is definitely just, you know, the way that the season's going to go and that these lineups are just going to dominate. We just have no clue with the end. Yeah. And let's unpack that through theoretical framework a little bit more. When is the only time in ADP's life cycle that projections are influencing the numbers? I mean, I would imagine throughout when they're set. So when the contest kicks off, that's the only time I got you, I got what I got what you're saying. Yeah. So that's probably framed a little poorly. No, no, no, no, no, no, you're right. I mean, ADP is, you're saying ADP is framed when projections are originally set. And that's the framework that we're working off of. That's the only time throughout, you know, from late May to September, right, where the ADP numbers are mathematically influenced solely by projections. Correct. Right. After that, it's heavily industry sentiment, player input, beat, yeah, beat riders. Yeah, it influences all that stuff. So it's why if we look at like the life cycle of ADP and we like to think that it approaches more what in game theory framework, we say Nash equilibrium, which is like the most perfect state of balance where no player can gain an appreciable edge over another through any action. So and we know that ADP never reaches Nash equilibrium. So like it's never perfect. But we like to think that as it approaches September, ADP becomes more accurate. Even that thinking, that framework of thinking is a fool's errand because we are so far removed from that ADP structure having any mathematical basis that it like it doesn't matter. So like within that discussion, if we look at closing line value, like, yeah, we want to think because like, we think we have control over this stuff as humans. Like we want to be like, this is my comfy area, I'd be closing line value, you'd be woohoo. Like there's all this variance stuff that still has to happen. And like during the season before the season, injuries. And we can talk about all the variance stuff a little bit heavier later. But like closing line value means next to nothing. And like there have been and I don't want to, I don't want to poo poo on the good work that has been done in best ball to describe closing line value. But that's exactly what it is. It's descriptive in nature. It's saying that these rosters that finished top 0.1% or top 10 or however we want to work out that sample size, we're describing what those rosters had in common reference in closing line value. So it's completely descriptive in nature is 0% predictive. It doesn't mean anything to us. It just means that like we are able to capitalize on ADP fluctuations in a plus EV manner. Yeah, that's, that's a really good point. I do think that that gets lost in a lot of this is how and why ADP ADP is moving the way that it's moving, right? Without really thinking through like, is this a mathematically sound reason as to why this is happening right now or is it simply, I mean, if you draft throughout the summer, you see the ADP shifts just based off of a hamstring injury that we know will be fine. You know, we, I mean, look at like Macchi lemon right now, for instance, or, you know, maybe you don't wanna go the rookie route. I think the more interesting example of this is like the Truba Hubbard Jonathan Brooks stuff that's going on right now. - Oh yeah, that's a pretty extreme example. - Yeah, where like, you know, we start the summer and Truba Hubbard has an ADP above Jonathan Brooks. Obviously, there's this Jonathan Brooks injury stuff that we're getting more and more confident because he's just playing. But I think that in most outcomes, Jonathan Brooks would have just been playing and not gotten hurt just based on where, you know, things were at, but regardless, like even after the Truba Hubbard injury that recently happened, and even though the timetable was pushing him like, at week one, the gap in, and this is where it's interesting 'cause like season long, you're not seeing this gap at all. I mean, it does not exist in a season long environment. It's the reactive bestball brain that this is really happening more. But on DK, you'll get Jonathan Brooks at the end of round six from from NADP perspective now. And Truba Hubbard's around 11 pick, right? And I'm not even a pro Truba analyzer. Like I think that there's a lot of like, to like about Jonathan Brooks and I was drafting him a lot and I was in on it. But there comes a point in time where it's very clear that some of the shifting in ADP is very just vibes based and based on what some of the news items are saying, as opposed to what does this actually mean? Like what is this doing? What do my projections look like as you noted? Whatever the case may be, how are we logically thinking about where this player should go? I wonder, what I'm wondering right now is like, how much more efficient your drafting would be if you do anchor a little bit more towards that like, initial ADP look, right? Because if those, if that ADP is more anchored on what our projections are saying, and there's gonna be some plenty of cases where like, we're shifting projections just based off of like news items and stuff like that or whatever the case may be, like just, you know, health or what have you. Like obviously Malik neighbors were shifting our projection not because Malik neighbors is now seemingly a lot healthier than we thought back in May or something like that, right? But I do wonder, 'cause I haven't done enough analysis, like we do a lot of analysis on like the end ADP, right? End of August ADP and what that looks like, but seeing the shifts and how much more predictive or less predictive that really is I think is something that we should at least keep in mind while we're drafting. - Within that same discussion, we now, this is really the first year where like things like AI is really coming into play. We've had AI around for three, four years now, but it was never something that we could confidently train, yet we'll phrase it like that. Now we have the ability to train an AI to think how we want it to think. And within that, we can feed it starting ADP. We can feed it injuries that happen. We can feed it. We can say like, hey, we'll go back to the Carolina Backfield example. We can say it probably, the projections probably started as 65, 35 to 60, 40 in favor of Chuba Hubbard as far as workloads split went. We can now say, let's shift that to 55, 45 in favor the other way and say, project this out, rank 'em. Give me a new update at ADP, see where that settles. I can guarantee you it's not gonna be a complete flip flop of their ADPs from Chuba Hubbard in the sixth round and where he's now at 11 and the other way around like from probably 14 Jonathan Brooks started, like 14 rounds over on there. And now he's up to the sixth. It's probably gonna have them both settle. If we just again, just went purely by projections and we can feed this engine to learn like us. Now we can say like, that's probably gonna put both those backs in the seven to eight nine round range, right? That would be the game theory optimal answer of when we want to be targeting those players. - Right, right. - The, there's more variants and stuff that we can talk about that goes into this discussion too. But this is now something that we can do. Like this is not, this is where we are in 2026 as far as AI goes. So if you wanted to simply every single day have an AI repopulate in an ADP based solely on projections and remove all the noise from the industry, from the talking heads from everybody that's playing this game, we can do that. And that would probably, if we were all, and again, if we were playing game theory optimal and everybody else was playing game theory optimal, that would probably be what we wanted to do. And truth, based on that ranking. - I do wanna ask you too about some of these more unknown commodities that have been getting steam, Dejan Stribbling, Jacobi Lane, could throw like a cable of Douglas in there. A lot of these rookie wide receivers, even like, you know, a Pat Bryant, Don Tavian Wix, you know, they've been rising a little bit as well. In these cases, you know, are you leaning into the hype or are you afraid to lean into the rising ADPs or is it just like a case-by-case thing for you? Like how do you view, you know, those sort of cases of these unknowns rising? - It's a case-by-case basis with one specific caveat for me. That specific caveat is late round wide receivers have an extremely low hit rate. We know this, this has been proven. So I mean, it's like, Pukin' Akua and nobody else, like the hit rate is extremely low. And when we're talking hit rate, we want like, league winner stuff. We're talking best ball. We're not talking about like, Jacobi Lane returns 14th round value and he was being drafted in the 17th. Like, that doesn't do much for us. We want like world beaters, we want the, and then that's what we need to be targeting in the later rounds. Like, I think this is a key mistake that the field is still making is like, we want to have that semblance of control in this game that has so much variance. So we play it safe in the later rounds. We should be swinging for the fences. And when we look at the historic hit rates of wide receivers coming from rounds 15 to 18, and we can say, you can frame that, whether that's where they start in ADP or where that's where they finish, like it really doesn't matter. I would say it's probably more accurate to frame it when ADP is released based off initial projection. So that encompasses all the names that you just listed off. So knowing that the hit rate of wide receivers found in that range is extremely low, again, talking about like players that actually make a difference in best ball. I would say it's probably futile. It just blanket statement. It's probably futile to be chasing those players up. The flip side of that is historically, where do like world beaters value come from? What positions in the 15th to 18th round? It's running backs and tight ends. - Right. - So I just kind of blanket statement want to be targeting running backs and tight ends at a heavier frequency in those later rounds, which by extension means that I don't really want to be chasing those wide receivers up. Now, there's this like, I know better or I know best like human mentality where even I fall victim to it, which is like, man, Dejean Stribling's pretty fucking good, dude, I kind of want a little bit there. So I think it's fine. I would say that not all of those players are created equal. Let's just compare like Don Tavian Wicks to Dejean Stribling. Like what is the ceiling case to be made for each of those players? Striblings and it'll probably take a lot of stuff going his way. And he has a lot of aging skill position players surrounding him on that offense, right? Mike Evans, three, George Kittle, 32, 33. Christian McCaffrey, 30. So the thing, the path to like pure ceiling outcome is probably a little bit more straightforward for a guy like Dejean Stribling, where Kaushan and offense, if things go right, Debo Samu gets hurt, Mike Evans gets hurt, George Kittle is coming back off an ACL tear or Achilles injury. It's probably a little bit cleaner and clearer case for the pure upside for a guy like Dejean Stribling compared to like Don Tavian Wicks, where it's like we've seen him be really, really efficient on a per target basis, right? He's still, there's a reason that he was not a heavier snapper, a player in Green Bay. He doesn't do like the down and dirty stuff as well. Directly compare that to Dejean Stribling who is one of the more polished like all the round water severs come out of this class. He's able to get in the trenches. He's able to block for runs. He's able to do all that nitty gritty stuff that you have to kind of do in a Kaushan and offense. Going back to like Pukinakua, which we brought up earlier, like he did all that really well too, coming out of college. And there's a reason why he was on the field. A lot more than we thought he would be. It's because he did all that other stuff, right? But yeah, so just directly comparing like I would want to chase a guy like Dejean Stribling a little bit up more than a guy like Don Tavian Wicks, even Jacobi Lane. His path to pure ceiling is probably a lot more muddied just comparing the two directly. - I'm Britt Coleman and I'm Trevor Sikama. If you ever watched a game and wondered what really made the difference beyond the final. score, that's exactly why we created NFL Pro. Listen to NFL Pro on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your phone, yes. The new NFL season is here, and you should be listening to NFL Daily as we march along to Super Bowl 61 last year. We had Mike McDonald, Sam Darnel on the field after the game, but that was last year. If you're a football sickle like me, NFL Daily is your kind of show. Listen to NFL Daily on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. So you said something in there about kind of chasing ceiling and going after those league winning types. So I'm curious how you feel about the notion that has definitely been pushed, especially me talking to Best Ball Bros on this show or just interacting with people on social media. But the idea of not drafting zeros late in your draft, right, this notion of like you want somebody that's getting you something. So therefore, I don't want that to mean that like those people are saying chase floor. You know, I don't think that that's necessarily the true outcome of what they're stating and saying. But I do think that someone listening to this might want to hear your take on that because it seems a little bit different than what others have generally said about not taking those zeros. And I know exactly what you're talking about. And again, the reason I think the reason for that notion is more descriptive in nature. It's saying let's see what has worked over the six five seasons of Best Ball data that we have. And it's like, okay, sweeping generalization here, we see that taking zeros is harmful for where it matters the most in the playoff rounds. It also influences taking zeros heavily influences your advancement rate. So we know that advancement rate and week 17 are the two highest contributors to expected value where all the money is made in these contests. If I flip that mindset and say, we are playing these contests to win the entire thing, right? And this is coming from DFS background here. It's kind of a kin to a 50/50 mindset or a cash game mindset versus like a GP mindset. If the goal is to have a 40% advancement rate and just let variance handle the rest, I think it's fine to say I don't want to take zeros in the later rounds because that's where that comes into play. It comes into play in advancement rate. And that's fine. Like, we still don't know what we want to be optimized for outside of what's optimal. Right. Yeah. So, if I flip that into my GP mindset, it is where can I or how can I absolutely lap the field? How do I get position myself, my portfolio, the individual rosters in my portfolio, to have the highest upside to go and win this thing? And that is shooting for the outlier stuff. So my frame of thinking is I want to be okay leaning into variance a little bit more, especially in the later rounds, and take those home run shots. Because if we think of an 18 player roster or a 20 player roster as we have on like drafters and DK, we have the ability to absorb some of that miss or some of those miss it. We have, we're, you know, we're playing nine players on a weekly basis. We have double that plus on each roster that we put into play. Yeah. So, bringing that kind of full circle, giving a specific example for this season, like my late round targets are almost all running backs and tight ends. It's, I want to be putting myself in the position to make the most if I am right. And the way to do that is to look at the data, where do league winners from the later rounds come from, most often from running backs and tight ends. Yeah. I'm okay taking misses. I want to be swinging and understand that that's going to influence my advancement rate a little bit and be okay with that. So like everybody is, everybody should have their own answer to this question or this discussion. It should come down to your own personal risk management and how you want to be optimizing your portfolio. Now, all of that comes with the caveat that we have to have basic like roster construction down because none of this theory stuff matters if we're like drafting four running backs in the first five rounds or we're not taking or we're to like take two quarterbacks in the first 10 rounds that just you just don't do those things. You can and be profitable. So all of that comes with the obvious caveat that like we have to understand how to most profitably construct these rosters that we're building. Well, my follow up to that is actually something that I wanted to chat with you about and that's obviously general strategy, but let's skip the general strategy of like what's going to work this year and just go straight into zero RB because that's kind of a strategy that will then dictate a lot of the other strategies that you might take and best ball in general. And your answer to the last one makes me curious of if you are going heavy zero RB right now this year as a both you know what hits late or you know, you've done research and it shows that, you know, obviously late round running backs and tight ends are going to give you much better hit rates than late round wide receivers, which then in turn means well in the earlier rounds does that mean that you are going more zero RB and is that also sets the first part within the second part of that is is this also a zig wall other zag type situation because we are seeing running backs could push up a little bit more in the best ball environment. One word answer yes, the the rest of that discussion is a little bit more nuanced. So zero RB is going to be much more beneficial to play off formats because in cumulative we don't have we don't have a 14 week window as being round one like we don't have the additional fluff in there built in we have to be performing right we have to be performing at peak performance for 70. So zero RB is less viable in cumulative and I say less they're still semblance they're still room to take some swings. We have to first understand like what zero running back was built for again, it was built to harness the injury variance at the running back or just blanket statement again running backs historically have been injured at a higher rate than any of the other skill positions in the NFL. Now that's what zero RB was built to harness that injury variance. We look at the past three seasons and running back injury rates are way down what has been the injury highest injury rates over the last three seasons quarterback and wide receiver. So to say like zero RB is dead is just completely missing the mark of one what it is and two the variance the injury variance that has been associated with recent history. So zero RB is absolutely not dead and if the field is using it at a lower frequency than historic tendencies we should want to at least be drafting zero RB as much as we were four years ago, if not more, to live. bridge, those field tendencies. So, and I would say, again, it's a little bit more beneficial to us in those playoff style formats where we have the additional slop to make up for, you know, one or two down weeks at the running back position within a 14 week window. But, you know, we had a little, we dipped our toes in on Sunday with the astringentie stuff like that could have been a massive thing. And it still could be. We really don't have any, we don't know what the injury is. It started off being, we think it's a knee and then it was lower leg. And now it's ankle, I don't know, the truth is in there somewhere, but we don't have test results. We don't have anything official from the team. So we still don't know. There's a lot of uncertainty there, but we look at Mike Washington. Why was he stuck in rounds 17 plus for so long? There are others, Ray Davis, March on Lloyd for a long time until Josh Jacobs, like for a while. Yeah. Right. A lot of stuff going on there as well. But, you know, the Braille and Alan types, the, the, the backs, the, the Cale on Blacks and whoever the other guy is, JJ Jordan, yeah, Jordan James, Jordan James, yeah. That archetype of back, in a backfield where we would expect them because what, whether it would be depth behind them or coaching tendencies, we would expect that back to fill kind of a lead back, at least one A type role, if the starter went down. That's where a lot of the upside comes from in zero or B in late round who were targeting. So those are the guys that like I want to be adding to hero builds, to zero running back builds, to builds that like, I don't know, like modified hero running back is like a thing now where it's like you take two running backs in the first three rounds. I don't know, dude. We're just trying to pigeonhole like this into labels, right? I know. I know. That's a discussion on society, I think more than anything, but like putting a label on everything. Um, but yeah, so those are the types of players that I want to be targeting as like an RB. Three on a roster and if we're I'm drafting zero running back, I probably want to have like a Tasha spears type, a Woody marks type, somebody that is going to get me something more than as zero because the variance associated with these backs that we're talking about is like anywhere from a zero to, you know, a workhorse running back, right, pending injury stuff. So I want to be kind of, you know, if I'm attacking zero running back, hero running back, modified hero running back, whatever the case may be, like drafting two running backs in the first three rounds and then not touching the position until rounds 12 plus, um, which I think is the most accurate description of modified hero running back is if I'm drafting like that, I want to then take into account roster construction because if I'm taking zero running back approach, hero running back approach, you want to ensure that the rest of the positions on your roster are elite, right, how are we doing that in today's NFL? That means you must have like one of the top three will say if we want to extend it to Colston leveling tight ends, you want to have like difference makers at the other positions. I want to have like Josh Allen, Colston leveling in the rounds three and four, um, I want to have top wide receivers on stacked on this roster. I want to have depth at wide receiver, the archetype of wide receiver that I'm taking in the later rounds is going to be more boom bust. It's going to be a wider range of outcomes guy because I want that ability to attack elite ceiling at the other positions and let the injury variance that running back kind of take over. So long again, I led with the one word answer, um, but like I want, I want to be leaning into zero running back. I want to be leaning into zero this year. Um, I want to be doing these things that have historical proven hit rates that are at a frequency greater than what the field is utilizing. Yeah, I think that you also bring up a good point to things. One is obviously the playoff versus cumulative formats, right, with with the zero RB again, to advance you have to be top two out of 12, right, which is really not, and this is another thing that I've been trying to kind of talk through with folks on the show this summer is like, I think there's this idea that to advance your team has to be really, really perfect, right? But it's more so that your team has to be in a really good spot in the playoffs themselves as opposed to getting through to one in six chance, which isn't like, you know, obviously, it's a higher end outcome, but it's not like super crazy, you know, you don't have to have like every right player through week 14 in order to get that, that team advancing, right? And so to your point here, that alone also lends itself a little bit more to the ability to do zero RB, because if you hit on one running back, let's say through through that point in time, or, or you hit on one running back through the first like 10 weeks and then those final four weeks right before the playoff start, maybe you get that second or third one because injuries pile up, whatever the case may be, and you've got the momentum going into the playoffs, but maybe you barely sneak into the playoffs, which is what we've seen so many times anecdotally with a lot of these basketball teams that then do really really well, right, that win or whatever, is this like idea that your team is not totally, you didn't smash weeks one through 14 because you don't have to, that's not where you have to smash. You're trying to smash in the playoffs and specifically in week 17. And so with a zero RB type build or like a hero RB type build and you're just trying to like find that RB to I do think that that it is very important to shout out that like these playoff formats are where that can happen in a more consistent way because it is a one and six shot to just get in there. And then once you're in there, a lot of stuff can, can, you know, go a certain way. So I think that's a really good point. And the other thing I wanted to throw out there is you make a great point about archetype drafting in the way that people think like when I go and I draft, I think you kind of, like people who like have been playing fantasy football for a while, kind of just do this inherently. But if you go running back, running back, like if you're in the back half of the first round and you get James Cook and then you turn around and you get Kenneth Walker or something right? Whatever it is. You know, which would be great. Which would be an awesome start. I would love it. Right. And so if you have those two running backs, I'm no longer thinking about the Taje Spears types. Like I would otherwise, right? I'm thinking about the Klon Blacks, the Ray Davis is well, maybe not Ray Davis with James Cook necessarily, but regardless, you know, you get the idea. So like I think that's another really good point to drive home is that when you are sort of constructing this lineup, don't just think about like the floor running back. So you were noting a Woody marks who knows going to get something, but probably doesn't have like the most massive ceiling in the world or, you know, some of these like early down, you know, not big past catching profile type backs like a Dobbins or a Chris Rodriguez or whoever, whomever, who to me are probably better and best ball than there are managed because in a managed league is just going to be chaotic and trying to predict when that production starts happen. Yeah. Yeah. Those players though, I don't know, have crazy, great, maybe there's some contingent upside, sure, but even still you have to think about what would happen if that starter goes down. And I don't think that there's that much of a difference in Delta between, you know, spending up six extra rounds to get a Chris Rodriguez for if an injury were to happen to Bechel Tutan and the backfield and maybe Rodriguez is the best example, but the backfield then opens up completely versus around 19 running back, like Klon Black or Jordan James, you know, thinking about the one outcome that could happen for one of those two backs to emerge of Christian McCaffrey going down. I mean, if we assume that Tutan and McCaffrey were both down, are we really sitting here saying that we would confidently know that Chris Rodriguez is a better fantasy asset than one of the two 49ers running backs, you know, like I don't think that we can confidently say that we would go one way or another. So you can get the discount and get those guys if you're looking for just that injury out as opposed to just getting some production, right, which is going to Chris Rodriguez. So you're paying that premium for some production, but you don't need to pay that premium. If you've already locked down, you're supposed to RB one RB two in the early rounds, right? I think it's a really, really important thing to at least, you know, get across because it's something that I think a lot of people don't actively think about, even though if they do it kind of inherently and internally as they're drafting. There's one player I think that highlights how the field is getting that so wrong throughout this season, running back wise, and that's Tank Bigs B. He started in the 17th, 18th round, right? And then, like, Sequon started missing some time and then reports happen that like they're going to try and get Tank Bigs B like a weekly workload and his ADP shot up to like 13th, 14th round. It's like in a best ball setting that the five to seven touches that he's going to get, even like if he is spelling Sequon means absolutely nothing to our roster. Yeah. Because his value is as a pure handcuff. So like why was he moving up into the 13th, 14th round? He shouldn't have been. So I had a ton of Tank Bigs B like early on in the draft cycle and then his ADP kind of skyrocketed a little bit because of all the uncertainty around Sequon or, you know, Sean Manion coming in is he going to look to spell Sequon a little bit more. And now it's like, okay, no, Sequon's back at practice and he's the workhorse. And now Tank Bigs B is dropping again. It's like his, his use to us in a best ball setting never changed. Mm-hmm. That was sort of drafting him just as that elite handcuff guy. Right. Right. Yeah, it makes sense. It was a really good example. I want to ask you what you think, you know, you kind of hinted at like, I mean, I guess you could technically throw what we just talked about into this bucket. But what you think best ball drafters get wrong. biggest thing that I have seen that the best ball can community is still getting wrong is drafting statically throughout the entirety of the draft window. So if, again, we've used this buzz word a lot today in our discussion of variance. If we think about, you know, when the contest that we're drafting open versus when they close, there's a sliding scale of variance within that structure as well. And it's this time information variance equation. So when contest kickoff in May, and we have four months of off season until the regular season starts, and then we have 17 weeks of the regular season, that level of variance is so much higher than if you're drafting in early September. The issue that I see generally speaking from the field is they're drafting in May as they would in September. And that is one of the biggest mistakes I think that we can make. So back to the zero running back discussion, I could tell very, very early that the field was like completely shying away from zero running back. And this was back to last year as well, right? Based off the recent injury trends that we noted. So what is zero running back? It's a highly variant way of drafting. So where would I want to institute that at the highest degree? When the variance is greatest. So that is right when these contests kicked off. So like I all massive chunk of my zero running back rosters in my portfolio were drafted in the first month of the off season. Because that is where the variance was highest. There's still four months for somebody to get injured before the season even starts. Yeah. And then there's the 17 weeks of the regular season as well. So bringing that discussion like full circle like the field is drafting, you know, broad again blanket statement over the field is drafting in May as they would in September. And I think that's a massive mistake. Yeah. That's a very good point about especially zero RB. I'm just going back to the discussion we just had. But there's stuff that can go down as the summer goes on. I think that the there could be pushback of and I'm curious what you would think about this. I'm just trying to think of like a counter, you know, just to see what. But like would be, Hey, it's May and you're drafting the zero RB team. So that means that you're relying on running backs that we don't know what their roles might be even the backups, right? So I would assume that the response to that this is a devil's advocate thing. This is not me necessarily believing that, right? My stance would be and I'm going to hear a few agree is that there's inherent variance to that aspect of things like like who steps up? Like right now we've been talking about the San Francisco backups, right? Like we don't even know how that would would play out. But that doesn't mean that you can't find that guy in May when you're drafting and you're getting him probably for a price that is lower anyway because we don't have that information. Is that sort of how you answer that? And I have it within that zero RB portfolio, like I had probably 50/50 exposure to like San Francisco backup. If they were on a roster, I probably had 50/50 exposure to both Jordan James and Caleb Black. They were the two guys most likely to step into that role. I had no idea. And we still really don't have it. And we still really don't have that much of an idea. It looked like it's it was Jordan James before he got hurt and now looks like it's Caleb Black because he's been on the field. But like we really don't know still. So kind of like just saying, you know, if I'm drafting a hundred rosters in May, June timeframe, I would probably want 40% of those. And this is just how I've handled it. I'd probably want like 40% of those rosters to be like zero running back. And I was probably targeting San Francisco backup on 25% of those rosters. So again, a hundred roster portfolio, 40% of them being zero running back, a quarter of those being San Francisco backfueled back up. I probably have like five Caleb Black and five Jordan James shares in that portfolio. And again, this is like, I don't know what my actual numbers are from a mindset standpoint. That's kind of how I'm looking to attack it. Yeah. Makes a ton of sense. Alright, we've covered a lot. We're not even going to get to everything that we were potentially going to cover. So I'll leave it at this. Give me a bold take. Think put your crazy variance hat on. Give me give me a bold take for this 2026 season. Michael mayor will win somebody a tournament. I love that. I love that because I've been clicking his name a lot. Yeah, dude, I put that out in the Twitter sphere in like May and got like all the push back. I think my words exactly was Michael mayor probably carries the highest upside of any around 20 pick. And everyone was like noted. But if you think about it and like we we know that the clink kubiac system is going to be heavy personnel heavy as in they're going to they're not going to utilize a lot of 11 personnel. And then you look at the state of their wide receiver core. It's like he's going to be on the field already. Then what happens with this 32 out of 32 ranked wide receiver core. If like something happens to somebody that we don't even want to consider being like having an injury. But like what if something happens, you know, ahead of him on the depth chart, what if something happens to Ash and Junji. Oh, right. Like we're here. There's a lot of upside there with Michael mayor that I think people are brushing off. Yeah. I completely, I mean, look, I think we're going to get usability out of him regardless of anything happening period. Yeah. Like in that offense, like you said, we're going to see enough 12 in that offense, you know, with the lack of of pass catching talent. And then yeah, upsides there if something were to happen to a lot of these guys, obviously, specifically a Brock Bowers. So yeah, man, that's a, that's a great take. I love it. This was a great conversation. I love being able to hear, you know, your, your brain spew some game theory knowledge. And I know that others will love it too. So let everyone know where they can find you and what, what you'll be working on this season. Yeah, man. On X or the Twitter sphere at high low FF H I L O W F F in season, I shift promptly to DFS from the best ball streets. My work is going to be found over at one week season.com. And just this season started working with stat rankings.com. If you're looking for a stat provider, highly recommend going and checking that out. If you want to go check it out, again, this is a service that was just launched last year. I was brought on to kind of help make it like the best stat provider service in the industry. And that's my goal. So if you have any like recommendations, hit me up. And if you want to give it a try, use code O W S Oscar whiskey Sierra, that'll get you 20% off. And you can check out everything we have to offer over there, dude. Awesome. Awesome. I love it. As always, everyone, make sure you check out late round.com. The draft guides out. And if you need that for your season long drafts upcoming, otherwise everyone, thanks for tuning in. The new NFL season is here. And you should be listening to NFL daily. As we march along to Super Bowl 61, it is in the name NFL daily. You'll have fresh content in your feed every day, all season long, that game winning drive. Maybe it's Herbert. Maybe it's Gino. Maybe it's my homes. If Fernando Mendoza or any of those rookies are balling out, we'll break down the tape. Join me. Greg Rosenthal and an all-star cast of co-hosts as we preview and recap every game. Listen to NFL daily on the iHeart Radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Brett Coleman and I'm Trevor Sikima. If you love football and want to understand what's really happening on the field, check out our show NFL Pro. Every week, we break down the biggest plays, trends and matchups using exclusive next gen stats, insights and NFL content you will not find anywhere else. Whether you're new to football, a fantasy football fanag or a die-hard fan, NFL Pro will help you analyze the game like a pro. Listen to NFL Pro on the iHeart Radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.